Biography

Photo Credit: Brittany Florenz

UPDATED APRIL 2024

Described by Fanfare Magazine as “one of the most talented and intriguing of living composers,” LORI LAITMAN has composed operas, choral works, and over 300 songs, setting texts by classical and contemporary poets, including those who perished in the Holocaust. Laitman’s music is praised for its uniqueness, craft and beauty: “unmistakable sense of identity…masterful skill” (Opera News); “artistry of the highest order” (Textura.org); “gripping and thought-provoking” (American Record Guide). She’s received commissions from the BBC, The Royal Philharmonic Society, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera America, Opera Colorado, Seattle Opera, Grant Park Music Festival, Music of Remembrance, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and others.

Three of Laitman’s full-length operas have received their world premieres over the past decade. Opera Colorado’s world premiere of The Scarlet Letter (to David Mason’s libretto based on the Hawthorne) was recorded by Naxos and named an Opera News Critic’s Choice. The recording also made Fanfare Magazine’s Top 5 CDs of 2018. A comic and magical tone sets the stage for The Three Feathers, Laitman’s fairy tale opera with librettist Dana Gioia. The opera was commissioned and premiered by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech in 2014, and has received numerous subsequent presentations. Uncovered, Laitman’s opera with librettist Leah Lax (based on her memoir), examines a woman’s right to choose and premiered in 2022. Laitman frequently collaborates with stage director and dramaturg Beth Greenberg, who directed each of these world premieres.

Laitman has just finished composing Maya and the Magic Ring, her second children’s opera with Gioia. A Lyric Opera of Kansas City commission, the work will premiere in March 2025. And with librettist Mason she is also at work on Ludlow, an epic American immigrant tragedy that explores the 1914 Colorado coal mining massacre.

Laitman continues to devote a substantial portion of her catalog to sharing stories about the Holocaust. Music of Remembrance has commissioned several works, including Vedem (2010), to David Mason’s libretto about the boys of Terezin and their secret magazine, and Wertheim Park (2022), setting the late poet Susan de Sola’s homage to Dutch Jews who perished under the Nazis. In 2022, Indianapolis Opera presented a staged version of Vedem.

Since 2000, Laitman has been a frequent guest composer at universities across the country. She and composer Tom Cipullo founded the NATS Mentoring Program for Composers in 2020, and in 2024, they received The American Academy of Teachers of Singing award for their efforts in developing and overseeing this program. Laitman is also the advisor and benefactor for the NATS Art Song Composition Award, and funds a fellowship for composers at The Yale School of Music, which awarded her the Ian Mininberg Alumni Award for Distinguished Service in May 2018.

With releases on Naxos, Signum, Acis, Albany and other labels, her discography is extensive. She has been featured on Thomas Hampson’s Song of America radio, Internet series and website, and is in The Grove Dictionary of American Music.

A magna cum laude Yale College graduate, Laitman received her MM from Yale School of Music. For more information, please visit www.artsongs.com.